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Mike Johnson
Mike Johnson
There’s a very good reason why obscure Louisiana congressman Mike Johnson was Donald Trump’s second choice for House Speaker after Trump’s insurrection ally Jim Jordan failed to win the job. The most notable difference between Johnson and Jordan is that Johnson is the one wearing glasses.
Few Americans even knew Johnson existed until he was elected speaker after three weeks of total House chaos. That’s unfortunate because Johnson and Jordan both played pivotal roles in organizing congressional support for Trump’s terrorist insurrection to overthrow American democracy on Jan. 6, 2021.
Once voters realize that little problem, it’s important for them also to know Johnson isn’t some mild-mannered Clark Kent wearing glasses. He’s one of his party’s most far-right biblical Christian conservatives opposed to abortion rights, gender equality, same-sex marriage and LGBTQ protections who has openly promoted “the great replacement theory.”
That’s the false accusation Democrats encourage illegal immigration to replace White Americans with Black and Brown people. Johnson has said the Democratic plan is wide-open borders “to turn all the illegals into voters.”
Illegal Election Interference
Before the insurrection, election denier Johnson worked quietly behind the scenes leading up to Jan. 6 at Trump’s request lining up House support for an absurd lawsuit to throw out millions of certified American votes Biden won in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton challenged the elections in those four states even though he had no legal authority to interfere in the elections of other states. Paxton’s lawsuit was filed in hopes Trump’s supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court was corrupt enough to throw out all 62 electoral votes Biden won in those battleground states so Republican legislators could replace them with fake Trump electoral votes.
But not even Trump’s court was that openly corrupt. Ultimately the Supreme Court and other federal and state courts threw out all of Trump’s evidence-free attempts to overthrow Biden’s clear victory.
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Off-the-Wall Lawsuit
Johnson, a former attorney for a rightwing legal alliance, pressured 125 House Republicans to join him in signing a legal brief submitted to the Supreme Court supporting Paxton’s off-the-wall lawsuit. Johnson’s political threat to his colleagues was Trump “will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review.”
Johnson’s brief was a full-throated endorsement of the ultra-rightwing legal theory of “independent state legislatures.” Based on vague Constitutional language, Republican legislators tried to claim they had the power to cast their states’ electoral votes for any candidate they wanted. The Constitution doesn’t mention any veto power for the governor, legal review by courts or specifically require legislators to accept election results.
That nonsensical Trumpian version of democracy wasn’t put out of its misery until one of the last decisions by the 2023 court. The 6 to 3 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts and supported by Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett and all three progressive justices abolished the dumb idea of lawless legislatures.
But on Jan. 6 MAGA Mike’s list of 126 House Republicans willing to throw out millions of legally certified presidential votes for Biden to prove their loyalty to Trump played another role in American history. Jim Jordan stayed in contact with Trump throughout the insurrection on Jan. 6 most likely to update the ex-president on his support in the House.
Destruction, Savagery
When Congress reconvened after the death, destruction and savagery injuring 140 police officers from the mob attack on the Capitol, Johnson’s original 126 House Republicans objecting to Biden’s electoral vote count had increased to 139 House Republicans along with eight Republican Senators voting against certifying Biden’s electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
At a dangerous moment for our democracy when Republicans are on track to nominate once again the only president who has ever attempted to violently overthrow a presidential election, Trump will have one of his most loyal supporters leading House Republicans when state electoral votes are counted by a joint session of Congress to declare the winner of the 2024 election. It should be a comfort for the House to be led by a speaker who calls himself a deeply religious evangelical Christian.
But the alliance between the thoroughly corrupt Trump, a hateful man who’s violated every Commandment in the Book, and White Christian nationalists has always baffled those of us who grew up in mainstream Christian churches. It bears little resemblance to the Christianity we learned about in Sunday school.
Their religion sounds more like an angry Old Testament God waging war to end racial and religious diversity in America than the New Testament socialism of Jesus Christ’s teachings to love our neighbors and lift up the most vulnerable and least fortunate among us.
Many of Trump’s disciples harbor fantasies they’re somehow ordained by God and can do no wrong. They’re not. When a president or his followers commit political violence to create their own twisted version of democracy, it’s the job of prosecutors and the courts to deal with it.
